Need to know how to set up a hosting account for your blogs and websites?

Your hosting account is where the actual files that make up your WordPress blog or website are “hosted” or stored, so that they are “on” the World Wide Web, or Internet.

The hosting account that we use and highly recommend is HostGator. Their prices are very reasonable and, if you ever need help, their support is unequalled in the industry.

Your hosting account will cost you $7.95 a month (or $9.95 a month if you choose to pay monthly). This is a very small price to pay to have a business location that has a global customer base. Your blog, or website, is your 24/7/365 salesperson that never sleeps and can make you money while you sleep.

2. Click on the “Web Hosting” button near the top of the page, just below the HostGator logo.

3. You will choose you plan on this page.

Note: You will see a button that says “Windows Web Hosting”. IGNORE THIS BUTTON. This confuses a lot of people because you probably have a Windows operating system on your computer (unless you use a Mac). You want the “Linux Web Hosting” which is the default, in other words, you’re already on the Linux page.

There are 3 basic plans to choose from: Hatching, Baby and Business. We recommend the middle plan, the “Baby” plan, because you will be able to put an unlimited number of websites on this one hosting account. In other words, you do not pay $7.95 per website for hosting – you pay $7.95 total for ALL of your websites.

I have over 150 websites now, so they are costing me about 5 cents per month each to have out there. Talk about cheap rent!

If you go with the “Hatchling” plan, it costs less but you can put only one blog or website on it.

4. Click on the “Order Now” button beneath the plan you choose.

5. The next page is the “Order Wizard” page. It will say “Select a domain option”. Check the box that says “I will use My Existing Domain and update My Nameservers only.”

Then, in the box that says, “Existing Domain”, type in the domain name that you just purchased. Like “mynewdomain” in the first box and “com” in the next box.

Then click “Next”.

6. On the next page you just confirm your information and select your billing cycle and click “Calculate Totals” to go to the next page.

7. Check the “I am a new customer.” box and go to the next page.

8. On this page you will fill in your name, address, etc and create a username and password. (Be sure to write all of this down.) Then fill in your payment information, agree to the Terms and click on the “Verify My Order” button to go to the next page.

9. Verify your order to make sure everything is correct, then click “Process My Order” and you’re done. You now have your hosting account set up.

Next, we need to connect your domain name to your hosting account. Don’t worry, this is really easy.

VERY IMPORTANT: Be sure you save and print the email that you get from HostGator. It will have some very important information that you will need, including your “nameserver” addresses. Your nameserver addresses are how you point your domain names to your blogs.

If you have any questions, just give us a call, or send us an email, or leave a comment.